Customer Product Reviews

The word 'epic' is banded about quite freely when it comes to movies, but this film really does deserve to be associated with the word. Not only does this Sergio Leone classic span the best part of four hours in length, but it covers pretty much the entire lives of the multitude of colourful characters involved.

Set in Prohibition-era New York, Once Upon A Time In America revolves around Robert DeNiro's character of Noodles and his friends, a bunch of crooks and bootleggers. Without wanting to give the plot away, I'd rather just say that this is simply a piece of cinematic history. At times stark, shocking, poetic and spellbinding, Once Upon A Time In America captures your interest throughout the frequent jumps forward and backwards through the characters' timelines, slowly piecing together the plot like a jigsaw, culminating in its sudden (and controversial) ending.

I can't heap enough praise on this film, and would recommend everyone to set aside the time to watch it at least once. In fact, it's well worth watching it multiple times to pick up on the bits you may've missed first time around.

I remember the first time I saw Alan Partridge, it never quite clicked for me. However, after seeing repeats years later, I've been hooked ever since.

The first series of 'I'm Alan Partridge' sees Alan dumped by his wife a while after his awful TV career was ended by him 'accidently' shooting a guest on his chat show. Now living in a travel tavern, his desperate attempts to make a comeback into TV (and, subsequent failures) are things of legend in my household. But Alan is not the only star attraction - Michael, the hotel's often unintelligible Geordie handy man and Lynn, his ever suffering mousy PA are also fantastic in their own right (not to mention the plethora of other bit parts and smaller characters).

So don't think twice about ordering this, as it's a shining beacon of British comedy gold. You'll be reeling off comedy quotes before you know it. A-haaa!!

This is bad. I mean really, there's no excuses here. Vocalist Dave Mustaine admits so himself. After a discussion with Lars Ulrich in which he was pushed to take a 'Risk' with their next album, Megadeth took that 'Risk' to become the next big thing, alienating 98% of his fanbase with this album of overproduced commercial pap. Not even listenable commercial pap. Just plain old pap.

Of the other 2%, 1% own and regularly listen to Cher records and the other 1% were fooled into thinking they were actually buying a real mouse trap (as illustrated on the artwork). In fact, one sits in someones attic to this day with a lump of cheese laying on it. True story.

The team of Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero under the guise of Rodrigo Y Gabriela was a breath of fresh air for me personally. I was first made aware of the band after being blown away by an acoustic performance of Metallica's epic 'Orion', done entirely on two guitars on a TV show.

The thing that sets these guys apart from other instrumental acoustic music that I've heard, is that it has some real gusto and passion. Rodrigo and Gabriela met in Mexico city after being in a metal band, but splintered off to do their own thing outside of the usual 'metal' remit with a plethora of other more leftfield influences. Thus, the way which the guitars are played occasionally has a fast and intensely rhythmic feel, much like metal. But, rest assured - this is entirely acoustic, but stands out greatly due to it's unusual style and feel (who knows, the covers of Metallica and Led Zep might even get you investigating other styles of music if you hadn't come across them previously!).

Very different, upbeat and great to listen to - I can't recommend this album highly enough.

Portishead's debut was undeniably huge in more ways than one. Not only did it have music to die for, but it has such an great vibe - this was much more than just electronica and trip-hop.

Along with Massive Attack and Tricky, Portishead helped to fashion the genre known as trip hop, and this album certainly made it's mark on refining its sound. As a whole, this is a fairly gloomy album in tone, echoing a lot of the bands who were releasing music in a similar style at the time. The thing that sets 'Dummy' apart however is not only the hip hop beats, jangling guitars and deep, throbbing bass that is pretty much ever present, but the astounding smoky vocals of Beth Gibbons. She really has such an incredibly soulful voice, and her soft (and occasionally, abbrasive) tones fit the downbeat music perfectly.

All in all, this album is well worth investing in, and is certainly Portishead's greatest moment by a country mile.

Yes, 1994's 'Dookie' was the album that pulled Green Day into mainstream attention. Thanks to such tracks as the fantastic 'Basket Case', 'Welcome to Paradise', 'When I Come Around' and 'Longview' - all of which were released as singles (with 'Basket Case' in particular receiving huge amounts of MTV and radio play at the time), this album saw the start of the bands meteoric rise to popularity.

Before this, they'd been a fairly edgy pop-punk band playing with underground success from their previous album 'Kerplunk' - 'Dookie' most definitely had the hooks, the snarling vibe and great tunes to push them into the stratosphere - and that it did.

I used to love this album as a kid, and it's still not been bettered by anything which they released after it in my opinion. Forget Blink 182 and Sum 41 - pop punk purity is right here!

Kid A was quite a divisive album for Radiohead. After the critically acclaimed 'OK Computer', expectations were high for this, their 4th album. When it actually came to the release, it showed a very different Radiohead to the one we'd previously known. Sparse, electronic soundscapes and computerised beats now replaced the rocking guitars and drums that most recognised as Radiohead, with many shunning the change in sound.

But, delving deeper into this album over time, it's pure Radiohead at its heart. This isn't just down to Thom Yorke's recognisable voice, but the songwriting and arrangements - even though different - are still 100% Radiohead. Opener 'Everything in its right place' sets the eerie, intriguing and claustrophobic tone of the album, with Yorke's repetitive refrains crooning softly over gently layered keyboard melodies. Although the rest of the album follows similarly in vibe (discounting the likes of the more uptempo 'Idioteque'), there is still a great variation to the songs on offer here, not to mention a great deal of strange experimentation which more often than not works excellently.

The album flows perfectly once given time to bloom, but is likely to be a challenging listen to non-Radiohead fans who'd perhaps only know of the songs 'Creep' or 'Paranoid Android'. Thus, although this isn't an instant album, it rewards multiple listens greatly - and it's well worth investing the time to indulge.

The debut album for Black Sabbath. Not only was this Ozzy Osbourne's first foray into the music world, but it pretty much single-handedly invented heavy metal. Great songs, a great 70s vibe (as you would expect as this was released in 1970) all topped off with Ozzy's shrill vocals. His range was much improved back in the days, these days his vocals sound shot compared to this album.

Tony Iommi's riff fest was only in the embryonic stages here, later to be improved upon in the coming albums, but you can deny the impact this had on people when it originally came out - it actually scared people as they thought the band were a bunch of devil worshippers!

A great, doomy, album filled with great tracks and memorable tunes. A classic in every sense of the word.

Clearly Dave Mustaine was still feeling bitter after being booted from Metallica several years earlier, as the overwhelmingly angry feeling from the band's debut 'Killing is my business...' is still here for all to hear on this, their second release.

This time however, Megadeth had the songs to back up the rage. Classic hits such as "Peace Sells", "Wake Up Dead" and "Devil's Island" all still feature in the bands live sets to this day, 25 years after they were originally written. A true classic album from the burgeoning 80s thrash scene, that still sounds great to this day. Well worth investing in.

The team of the late Layne Staley (R.I.P), and Jerry Cantrell was a match made in heaven. This, the bands second album, has a slightly different sound to the debut 'Facelift' - much more grungey, less 80s sounding and with great guitar driven songs.

The album opener "Them Bones" is the best track on offer here for me, with a really sinister pounding vibe, but this isn't the only jewel, as "Angry Chair", "Rooster", "Down in a Hole" and "Would?" all class as some of the best tracks that AIC ever wrote. The band carried on after Layne Staley's death to great plaudits, but this album really encapsulates the band's greatest moments with their 'classic' line-up in one easy package. Don't think twice - buy!

I'd been looking forward to this ever since I was drawn in by the band's debut album Transcendental, which entirely changed my opinion of female fronted bands with clean vocals. However, when it came down to it, this doesn't quite match up to the greatness of their debut unfortunately. This is not to say that this a bad album however, it just seems a little muddled with too many influences sucked in to the melting pot this time around.

Highly progressive riffage pounds and soothes in equal measures, binding Cynic-like jazziness with late period Emperor-esque controlled disorder. Julie Kiss's vocal work is the calming contrast to the plethora of churning riffs which tumble and fade spasmodically, running in and out of phase with the intertwining lounge and jazz influences that are spattered throughout. Sure, it's pretentious — but at the end of the day, the music contained within this album isn't just the technical display of musicianship that it may be mistaken for upon the first couple of listens. Given the chance to truly sink in, intriguing structures and impressive song compositions seep into the listener's consciousness, planting seeds that begin to flower slowly with every additional listen.

To be honest, it annoys me that some people insist on blindly comparing To-Mera to the likes of Lacuna Coil or Nightwish, as musically they're nothing alike at all (in fact, their brand of music destroys the profitable pop metal of those two in my eyes). There's no blatant stabs at commercialism to be found here which will strike a chord with many, but when they do write a catchy chorus, they don't milk it like many others would, instead letting it linger just long enough to demand another spin. Worth a punt.

I thought Alestorm's first album was fantastic fun, so was expecting another fine dose of pirate related shenanigans on this their new EP. However, it seems that Leviathan turns out to be simply a stop gap to keep the fans hungry for their next proper slab of pirate metal, without much to offer in the way of interest compared to their debut.

For me it's a bit TOO short, with only 1 original new track (the remaining three tracks being made up of a re-recorded track from their Battleheart days, 1 cover and a German lyric version of “Wenches and Mead” from their debut album). The new track has the same bounding enthusiasm as the shanties from their debut, but with a less tongue in cheek lyrical approach this time around (the song being about… well… a massive sea creature ripping crew limb from limb, naturally).

Their re-recorded Battleheart song also sounds 100 times fresher than its original version. The biggest shock is that the cover of 'Wolves of the Sea' by the dubious ‘pop’ band Pirates of the Sea (yes, the same group that made a Eurovision song contest entry for Latvia) is surprisingly catchy in it's newly 'metalized' form. Finally, “Weiber und Wein” adds nothing to the original version of “Wenches and Mead” – so no shocks there then. All in all, Leviathan is all well and good for what it is, but just don't go expecting too much from it - it merely adds up to the sum of its parts - nothing more, nothing less.

The debut of Dave Grohl's Foo Fighters is my personal favourite release from their discography. Likely to have wanted to shaken off any association to Nirvana from the off, they came across as a bit of an uncut diamond on this release. The songwriting ability is certainly there, but they also have a great 'rough around the edges' sound which really sets the album going from the opening drums of 'This is a Call' - something they lost on their more commercial leanings of their later releases.

Tracks such as 'Weenie Beenie' show the band at their savage best, with Grohl's vocals distorting to a incomprehensible stream of bile, and the catchy chorus of 'I'll Stick Around' is up there with the best of their material. As a whole, a great album - well worth looking into.